(279 words) It is generally accepted that Alexander Solzhenitsyn devoted his work to criticism of the Soviet regime. However, the same author paid attention not only to particular problems, but also to eternal questions in his soulful story “Matrenin Dvor”. In particular, he described an interesting find in search of the meaning of life - the worldview of the main character, the righteous one, without whom “there is no village”.
Matryona has a difficult fate, even against the background of the rest of the villagers, who also live in poverty and ignorance. She married out of necessity, without waiting for her beloved missing, lost all her children, and even her unloved husband died, so the woman was left alone. Of course, she raised Thaddeus's daughter, Cyrus, but the girl left to arrange her life. And now the sick old woman eats a miserable existence alone with a cat and cockroaches. Why should she live? She has no prospects, nor opportunities. Behind only suffering and hardship, ahead - half-starving. But Matrena Timofeevna found herself an outlet in humility and help people around. She selflessly puts all the remaining forces into making someone's life easier. The heroine willingly sacrifices her interests for the sake of strangers, for example, gives her housing to Kira during her lifetime. Moreover, she does not require gratitude or recognition, even frank disrespect does not prevent her from loving her neighbors and humbly offering her help to them. In her impulse, Christian mercy is clearly visible - the wealth of the soul, which allows a person to remain happy in the most difficult conditions, because for happiness he does not need to take something, but give himself.
Solzhenitsyn perfectly saw the political and social problems of his time, but he wrote not only about them. Along with criticism, he proposed to ordinary people, on whom nothing depends, a simple solution: not to be as callous and indifferent as the Soviet regime. He taught them to support each other and find in this the meaning of his difficult life.
